


home is where the heart is

by bluestoplights, letterfromathief



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Season/Series 04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:58:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6760483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluestoplights/pseuds/bluestoplights, https://archiveofourown.org/users/letterfromathief/pseuds/letterfromathief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing Scene from/post 4x12 // Emma has nightmares. Killian is always there to push them away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	home is where the heart is

**Author's Note:**

> Sandy and I sat down like "okay let's spin this little headcanon into a fic"
> 
> [7k later]
> 
> basically if CS has had sex already, we like to think that this is how it happened.

Emma wakes up, her heart pounding in her chest and her breaths coming in short, shallow gasps. She sits up in her bed at the loft, hand pressed to her chest as if that will calm her heartbeat down. Emma closes her eyes again - or tries to, at least, because when she does all she can see is Killian’s heart crushed into dust at Rumple’s feet and her limbs frozen in place and all she can feel is knowing, _knowing_ that she wasn’t fast enough or powerful enough or good enough to save him - and does her best to level her breaths.

It’s a skill she’s learned after years of nightmares - the kind that occurred when her foster parents left her alone in the dark and when she spent day after day alone at 28 in a Boston apartment thinking of the pain some bail skipper caused when he left bruises on her arms. One breath in, hold it for one count. Another breath out, as slowly as she can. Repeat as much as necessary. Clear her head as much as humanly possible.

She stays like that, for a few minutes, hand still pressed to her chest as it rises and falls. She gives up on keeping her eyes shut, focusing her gaze instead on the floral pattern on her sheets as she balls them in her fingers. Mary Margaret picked them out, she knows, and the sight - so domestic and homey - should calm her down. The breathing, soft and slow, should calm her down.

But she keeps on thinking of Killian, the way he collapsed in her dream and the way her head throbs and the desperate sound of her name on his lips when she remained frozen in place, and none of it works. She has to know he’s safe, has to know he’s okay, has to know Gold really did go over the town line and that he won’t ever hurt him again.

Emma reaches for her phone at her bedside with fumbling fingers. Her eyes burn at the brightness of the backlight and she has to squint to tell what time is projected on her lock-screen.

1: 27 A.M.

She sighs, pressing the top button to darken the screen again. She folds her arms in her lap, hands gripping around the phone as she tries to reason with herself. Emma can’t call him in the middle of the night, muttering something about dreaming he was dead like an insane person. He needs rest, he deserves rest after being used as Gold’s puppet and nearly killed. She does not need to be interfering with that. Emma is a big girl, she can handle herself.

He’ll be there in the morning.

(A traitorous voice in her hand protests - _‘But will he?’_ )

Emma curses under her breath, unlocking her phone and pressing on his name before she can think better of it. She winces as soon as she lifts the phone to her ear, but even a bleary _‘Hello,’_ would be something right now. Maybe he’d understand, if she told him she just wanted to hear his voice.

A female, robotic voice comes over the line, instead. _“I'm sorry, the person you are trying to reach is unavailable”_

His phone must be dead. Killian is terrible about charging the damn thing. Emma presses her lips together, frustrated. She shouldn’t have tried calling in the first place. Emma should have just left it alone and gone back to sleep. Emma shouldn’t panic like this, shouldn’t be tortured by these thoughts.

Except every man she’s ever loved is dead, now. And while she may be anxious about vocalizing what she feels for Killian in terms like that, she’s not anxious to add his name to the list. The thought of losing him like she did everyone else… her stomach twists at the prospect.

But he’s alive. She saw it for herself, put his heart back in his chest. Killian kissed her and told her that he was a survivor and that should have been enough.

Her dream still felt so real, so visceral she knows she can’t sleep like this.

Another theory floats into her mind. Killian could be in trouble and that’s why he’s not answering his phone. It’s a stupid thought, a panicked thought, given that she should know better. He’s bad at charging his phone, chronically. She can’t count the number of times she’s dialed the number only to find it dead. But it also could be a sign that something is wrong.

Emma has ignored signs before. She pushed aside Killian’s odd behavior and she only realized what was going on when it was nearly too late. If that happened again, she would never forgive herself.

Her paranoia wins, for tonight. Emma grabs her jacket and slips on her boots when she gets up off the bed. She keeps her footsteps light and closes the door excruciatingly slowly behind her as to not wake her parents. She just has to seem him, has to know he’s okay.

Then, she can rest.

-/-

Emma paces in front of his room, the light bulb in the hallway flickering ominously above her. The ridiculousness of her coming here is starting to hit her at full force, as is the fact that she came running to him in the dead of night because she had a nightmare making her feel more and more embarrassed. She doesn’t want to wake him up, doesn’t want to bother him, but she -

He nearly died the last time she ignored her fears. Emma can’t let that happen again.

She knocks.

Killian opens the door after a few moments, his expression confused and his hair tousled with sleep. Emma stares at him, for a beat, drinking the sight of him in - alive and safe. She kisses him before she can think better of it, her feet nearly tripping over themselves as she launches herself towards him.

-/-

Killian doesn’t get the chance to stumble back, to voice his confusion even. He doesn’t even get the chance to think. Not that he can manage that when Emma’s mouth is moving over his, hot and rough, and desperate.

It’s the desperation that has his head spinning, the way the weight of Emma against him should make his head spin and make his fingers twitch and slide over her skin with equal desperation.

His head spins, swims even, and he’s already been feeling the sailor lost at sea, barely a raft beneath him and the storm brewing before him, ready for the final blow, but Emma’s here and suddenly he’s adrift on a very different sea.

He may have laid his body down to sleep but he’s spent more time combing his fingers through his hair, combing over everything that’s happened than he has spent with his eyes closed. Rumplestiltskin is gone, passed over the town line, and that’s supposed to mean that Emma’s _safe_ , and yet here she is within his arms and she isn’t okay.

Something is wrong, and why those words always seem to ring so true with him is easy to answer. No need to voice the question, no need to think at all (not that he can with Emma’s lips on his, moving hot and so frantic, so -) The answer is in the tremble of his fingers at her hip, his hook pressing to her, his mouth unable to return the fervor of hers.

Something is wrong. He was wrong. He’s -

Killian starts to drag back and break the kiss the way he’s broken so many things. Things fall apart, they do, but he always manages to give them that extra nudge - and would Rumplestiltskin have gotten so far in his plans if Killian hadn’t wanted to build something for once, instead of breaking; would Rumplestiltskin have gone so far if Killian had been willing to let things fall apart on their own, to watch Emma’s walls fall down with the gentle assurance of his words, his hook pulling her towards him, his hand holding her steady, his heart -

(His heart seeking hers.)

Emma follows the motion, allowing the break which jars him; she’s not broken, never was, but she is oh so fragile and how easily she allows him to place this distance between them when she was so eager to close it; it aches.

Emma’s lips are pink, a hot color to them that he could appreciate better if something (he) wasn’t dreadfully wrong. She catches her breath, her chest rising and falling, and he finds he has to catch his, too, breathless at the look on her face, the slowly spreading smile. It splits her face, wide enough to crinkle her eyes with laughter lines. His heart - it feels newly placed back in his chest, still adjusting to being wrapped in warmth and not Rumplestiltskin’s cold grip.

She smiles so wide that his heart is being shoved into his chest again, no chance to brace himself and he’s utterly breathless.

“You’re okay,” she says, not a murmur, not a cry, just a simple relief in the sound.

Is he? He’s wrong, but he’s okay - he’s okay if only because she’s here to tug close, his arms having already slipped around her again. With his hook at her hip and his hand cupping her waist, he pulls them together. Emma draws her hands up his bare arms to his equally bare shoulders.

He’s okay with this - because this, at least, doesn’t feel wrong, to have her first touch to his skin be like this: her hands splaying over his shoulders before settling on holding him tight, fingers pressed just hard enough to strain at his muscles. He holds her gaze, realizes he’s been holding more than that even, holding the kind of relieved breath that he hasn’t let loose since Rumplestiltskin first held his grip on Killian’s heart, before he even had his hands on it, when he warned him that his hand belonged to the man Killian used to be and Killian could only tell him that he wouldn’t fall for his tricks.

That hand belonged to the man Killian knows he still is; he’s _wrong_.

While Emma has walls, Killian has thorns, and they tear until everything breaks - and bloody hell, he’s wrong and she sees it, her eyes widening just a bit. But she doesn’t ask, just keeps her gaze on his up until the moment their lips touch and she kisses him without the desperation that drove her through the door and into his embrace.

Killian can’t think with her mouth on his, tells himself that no thought can touch him when they’re like this, but still he feels the sailor lost at sea. But it’s a different sea this time, and in the distance he can just make out salvation, close enough that his head may swim, but they’re waters easy to navigate even for a man like him if he would only -

He gives in, lets go of the raft beneath him, and lets himself swim.

Emma starts forward, walking him backwards from the closed door. His knees hit the back of his bed but she doesn’t stop until they fold and his back hits the bed. Killian laughs because he feels so incredibly fortunate - lucky to be alive and here and with her.

Lucky to have salvation so within his grasp that he can slide his hand up from her waist and move it to cup her cheek.

There’s something sweet in the way she kisses him, then, something gentled in her form when she leans up and away and presses her hands to the hem of her shirt, toying with it. He swallows, and perhaps that’s all the permission she needs.

He is certain that it is all he can gives when she’s looking at him with such softened eyes.

If Emma has walls, they're crumbling with every inch of skin revealed, and his heart never stopped beating, but still he feels like there's something blooming to life inside him - if he has thorns, then they’re only there to protect something much more fragile, like the laugh she lets escape her when she says, “Like what you see?”

Something is -

Something is right, everything rights itself when he looks at her and a smile curves her lips, affectionate and teasing, and filtered with happiness. Salvation isn’t just within reach, salvation is here - and he thought he'd hurt her as he has everyone else he loves. When Rumplestiltskin controlled him he was terrified of hurting her more than he was about his own fate, so to have them both here and alive and happy (to make her happy) is everything.

Something isn’t wrong; _everything_ is right, and as she leans back down, he thinks his heart could have been in no better hands than hers.

_Is_ in no better hands than hers.

“Aye, love, I do.”

-/-

This wasn’t what Emma intended when she came here, but she isn’t complaining. She wanted to see him, his eyes fixed on hers and his mouth curved into a slow grin. She wanted to hear him, his voice rasping in her ear. She wanted to feel him, the warm skin of his body and his lips pressed against hers. Emma wanted it all - the proof that he’s right here with her and not leaving anytime soon. Gold, as much as she hates the man, was right in Neverland - Emma needs proof and fact and evidence before anything else. There’s no better evidence of Killian, of his presence and his comfort, than hands-on experience.

But this, the way his head arches to meet her lips and the sound of his gentle hum as he runs his nose along the column of her neck, is just part of the equation. Emma doesn’t like faith, doesn’t have much use for it, but with him -

She can believe the promises whispered against her shoulder, the love in the gentle reverence of his hand along her back and the affection in his eyes. Emma can believe him when he tells her that he won’t leave her, that he believes in her and this and them. She believes in _him_.

She keeps her touch gentle and her eyes light when she slowly lifts the shirt he’s wearing - his arms rising to allow her access and his hook nearly catching in the fabric - and his hair is tousled and his eyes are alight with mirth and tenderness. Emma laughs, bending her head down until it’s flush with his bare chest, once it’s off.

“What’s so amusing, sweetheart?” he asks, voice low and soft as his hand comes up to cup her cheek.

“Nothing,” she murmurs, lifting her head up to meet his eyes. “I’m just...I’m happy you’re here.”

The words come out more emotional than she intends them to, voice thin and nearly breaking. She laughed because she was happy, laughed because he looked happy, laughed because this is her life now - warmth and contentment and it almost doesn’t feel real. In spite of all of her evidence and belief, it still doesn’t feel real.

Her hand comes up to wrap around his hook, holding it in place beside her. The cool steel is just another part of him, another part of his touch and another thing that makes him who he is.

Killian’s hand stills at her cheek, his expression filled with a soft sort of surprise. “You are.”

It’s meant to be a statement more than it is a question, just a quiet observation, she knows. It comes out sounding awed and amazed, like he’s never thought of himself deserving of such attention.

Her fingers tighten around the metal. “Yeah,” she breathes. “I am.”

The fact that he made a deal with Gold in the first place to get his hand back so he could hold her, give her a man he thought of as better for her sake, isn’t lost on her. But she wants him to know, needs him to know, that she wouldn’t have him any other way than how he is. “Just the way you are,” she adds, for good measure.

Killian tilts his head up to kiss her, his tongue sweeping along the bottom of her lip and his hand moving to thread in her hair, crushing her to him with a passionate groan. Her chest - covered only by her thin bra - presses against his bare one and she presses herself down further on his hips. Her arms snake around his neck as he sits up, hooked arm wrapping around her and lips trailing down her jaw.

He moves his hand from her hair to her back, fingers running over the small scrap of fabric he finds there. Killian presses a soft kiss, just below her ear, as he traces his fingers over the small metal clasps. “Are you sure, love?”

Emma kisses his shoulder, resting her forehead against it and nuzzling into him further still. “Positive. You need help?”

His laugh is raspy in her ear. “I think I can manage.”

Sure enough, the man has nimble fingers. He pinches the fabric just enough to cause the clasps to come undone, leaving her back bare and her bra held up only by its thin straps. Killian splays his hand out on her back, running it up and down the length of it softly. Emma hums contentedly, still pressed against him. He finally stops at one of her shoulders, guiding the first strap down with a careful admiration. He repeats the gesture on the other side and leans back just to let the fabric fall, revealing her to him.

Killian grins broadly, looking a little pleased with himself. Pleased with her, too, if the way his eyes darken as they linger on her breasts are any indication.

“I’ve had dreams like this, you know,” he murmurs, leaning forward to nip at her collarbone. His hand casts the bra aside and it falls somewhere off the bed, right alongside his shirt and hers.

“Me too,” she replies with a smile.

He laves at the skin just above her breast and she groans, arching her back to allow him better access. Killian stops before he can get where she wants him. “Fancy switching positions?”

“Why - did your dreams also involve a _‘woman on her back’_ , as you put it?” she goads, her hands digging into his shoulders and preventing him from moving.

He brings his hook up to circle around one of her nipples - cool metal contrasting hot skin - and she bites her lip to prevent a moan from bubbling out of her mouth. “Easier access to precious treasures,” he explains with a grin that’s nearly all teeth, hungry and wanton and -

It’s a fair enough proposition.

Emma falls on her back on the bed beside him, chest heaving and eyes shut in contentment. Killian wastes no time in rolling over to meet her, knees splayed on either side of her hips. His lips brush against hers and she clasps him to her, one arm wrapped around his back and the other holding his head. Killian starts a path downwards, trailing his lips down her jaw, down her neck, down her collar. He stills once he gets to the crevice of her breasts and she watches him, eyes fixed to his.

His lips curve into a smirk and she knows he’s teasing her, knows he’s torturing her and getting a kick out of it.

“Do you need help?” she repeats, knowing full well how he responds to challenges.

It’s a trait they have in common.

Killian’s lips skim over one of her breasts and he cups it with his hand, tongue flattening against one of her nipples and - well, fine. That does it. It more than does it, if she’s being honest with herself, the way his thumb rubs on the underside of her breast before moving to draw slow circles along the nipple of the other. Killian sucks her breast into his mouth, eyes on hers the entire time in a contrast of light eyes and dark eyebrows, and she can’t bite back the moan. Her hips raise, instinctively, to meet his and his hardness presses against her in a way that makes her want to shatter.

“Killian,” she rasps as he switches sides, pressing a light kiss against her breast before switching to lick the other. His hook moves up to rub against the nipple that’s just left his mouth. She clings to his hair with one hand and presses his ass against her with the other. “Fuck, Killian. Pants off, now.”

She’s only capable of jerky speech, the way his cock brushes against her clit with every dirty, slow grind of his hips against hers.

“Give me a moment,” he urges, tongue still drawing nonsensical patterns on her chest. “I believe you deserve my full and prompt attention, love.”

Emma almost rolls her eyes, recognizing the line even if he might not. “Emphasis on the prompt,” Emma retorts, wrapping a leg around his hips and leaning upwards enough so that he can feel her pressing against his length, feel the constraints of their remaining clothing. He sucks her breast into his mouth, hard, and releases it with a choked gasp.

“Ah,” he replies, voice strained. “I’m seeing the...pressing nature of our conditions.”

“Pants,” Emma emphasizes again, squeezing his ass in her palm. She brings her leg down. “Now.”

He runs his lips down her ribcage and the length of her stomach, the muscles of his back rippling as he moves his path downwards. “Rude to interrupt a man’s process, you know.”

“Rude to prolong a woman’s suffering, you know,” Emma replies, grin coloring her lips as his fingers still at her waistband.

“Suffering?” he repeats, raising an eyebrow. “You call this suffering?”

She has a rebuttal ready to leave her lips, but his hand slides down the front of her pants and under her underwear and his fingers are rubbing against her clit in slow, sure circles before she can even get a word out. All she can manage is a gasp, then, back arching and eyes rolling into the back of her head.

“Ah,” Killian smirks, looking down at her as he stills his fingers. She rocks against them, hips moving in desperate little circles for more friction, more of his touch. “It seems like the most exquisite torture, then. I suppose that’s why they call it _la petite mort_.”

He curls one of his fingers inside of her, then, and it slides in easily through her folds thanks to her wetness. His thumb taps against her clit.

“French?” she asks, voice raspy. She’s trying to remain composed, trying to keep herself together long enough until she gets her pants off, but he’s making this difficult. “Seriously?”

“They teach you a manner of things in the Royal Navy, love,” he replies, grinning as he slides yet another finger in as she squirms.

“Just take my pants off, Killian.”

“As you wish,” he replies, hook snagging the edge of her sweatpants as his fingers still inside of her. He takes his dear, sweet time dragging it down. She whines underneath him, hips tilted upwards as she pants. He swallows the groan with his lips, pressing a hot, open mouthed kiss against hers. He looks back down to his handiwork, to the length of her body, and inhales sharply.

She must look thoroughly debauched, covered in sweat with kiss-bruised lips and two fingers inside of her as her hair sticks to her face. By the way he looks at her as she slides one leg, then the other out of her pants, he must find the picture arousing.

Killian slides his fingers out of her, brushing against her clit as he drags the wetness-slicked digits upwards to tug down her underwear. She groans at the loss, feeling desperate and needy and wanting. He’s a tease, through and through. She might just combust before the night is over.

Well, it’s technically morning, but still.

“Patience, love,” he encourages, gently guiding himself down her body until his head is between her thighs, inches away from where she wants him.

“That’s not my best virtue.”

“You’re full of virtue, darling,” he grins, looking up at her encouragingly. “Just relax. I’ll take care of you right and proper.”

Maybe it’s a show of faith that she’s able to do this, to let her walls down enough to let him adore her. Emma nods her agreement, pressing her head against the pillow.

-

He drags his cheek along her inner thigh, humming lightly in the back of his throat. Content - he’s content just to be right here, to place little kisses at her thigh and watch her shift closer. She wants to be closer to him, and he’s more than content with that.

(He’s not content; he’s hungry for her, his cock so hard that it’s sweet suffering.)

He kisses her again and his heart beats just a little faster as he kisses higher, nudging his nose over her soft skin. The muscles pull taut as he moves closer. He taps her thigh with his hook, insistent, and she follows his lead, spreads just wide enough for him to shoulder her hips apart.

(He’d follow wherever she’d go, but perhaps he isn’t the only one who’d do so.)

He grins at the thought and it shouldn’t surprise him when he has her on her back like this that she’d _want_ the same way he does, but it does, makes his heart beat harder in his chest.

Killian kisses the crease of her leg, lingering there only for a moment before he lifts and hooks it over his shoulder, the heavy weight a comfort; the heavy weight nearly driving him mad. A phrase occurs to him as he presses the first of many (many) kisses to her center - a simple one she’d said with an “Aha!” as she dug through the drawers at her desk, looking for one of her special ink pens, “Knew it’d be there. X marks the spot, and all.” He has to draw back at that, enough to laugh.

“Okay, this isn’t funny,” Emma grumbles, not enough heat in her voice to be a true protest.

“X marks the spot, Swan, and I think I’ve just discovered buried treasure,” he says just to tug that laugh from her too.

She curses, “Jesus fucking christ,” and then whimpers as he leaves the humor behind for tasting her fully, not a kiss this time, licking a stripe from her center all the way up. Emma’s sensitive. It isn’t a discovery even though she hides it well beneath her walls, beneath that red leather of hers and those crossed arms because she always trembles when he has her in his arms.

(She’s sensitive, and she _hid_ it well, but she doesn’t need to hide it here.)

She makes a soft sound at first as he begins to tease her clit, but it quickly comes to a crescendo, a sharp cry, and she curses at herself, her hand working its way down to grip for his - “Granny could hear.”

He couldn’t give much of  a damn if Granny, Ruby, and the whole of the diner hears and he squeezes her hand tight to let her know because he has no desire to say the words when he has such access to her. He’s acting the selfish pirate, but for once it doesn’t feel _wrong_ , feels right that he should keep kissing her, scraping his teeth gently along her clit until she starts to whimper his name.

It’s never sounded sweeter, and he’s never wanted to hear it more.

Gratified that he can be the one to turn her into this, he keeps going sucking hard on her clit until her thigh is trembling on his shoulder and her hand is squeezing his, hard enough to draw gasped breaths from him when he draws back for air.

Needs more than a lungful of it when he makes the mistake, the beautiful mistake of looking up, seeing her chest heave high and fall low, her nipples hard peaks that he didn’t spend nearly enough time worshipping - and then he meets her eyes and his cock aches at the way she breathes hard and heavy, but still manages to smile.

And what a smile it is, all teasing and goading, and Killian rises to the challenge in her green eyes, dives back into her sweet flesh, tongue dipping and curling. This time he focuses in on her center, licking and tasting.

He can’t get enough of her.

Vaguely he realizes he’s pressing too hard into the bed, seeking the friction that she seems so eager for when she starts to rock against his face. He draws up, more than happy to oblige her. Killian rolls his tongue through her folds again before sucking the throbbing bundle between his lips, no teasing this time, just hard licks that make her gasp and cry out, no care to anyone that might hear anymore, and his name, his name following every emphatic curse - his name said like a blessing, reverent and -

His heart beats hard in his chest and he throws himself into it, kissing, licking, sucking, until Emma goes taut. He doesn’t let up, licking her gently through her bliss, soothing her hot flesh - although it’s no balm for him.

He rubs against the bed and she laughs high, the sound breaking with every shudder of breath.

“I think I can give you better than the bed,” Emma says as he looks up at her.

He kisses her clit again, just to part her lips in an ‘o’ of surprise instead of the curled smile and practically purrs around his words, “Shall we test that theory?”

“Uh huh,” she replies.

He releases her leg from his shoulder and wastes no time in moving up and over her. Emma meets him, a dirty tilt to her hips that only makes him want her that much more. He barely gets his hand on the button of his pants before she’s reaching forward for him, hand brushing against his as she tugs.

“Careful with the goods,” he rasps out.

“The goods?”

She’s so amused with herself that he’s at a loss for a proper response - and then at least, he has a proper excuse as her hand wraps around his length, testing the weight of him, and she says, “Ah, you mean _these_ goods.”

She’s all too wanton when she says, “Does this feel _good_?”

“I thought we were -”

She cuts him off and says, “You’re right, you’re right.”

Emma releases him to hang hard and heavy between his legs, falling back on her elbows and staring up at him with lust clouded eyes. Her lashes dust over her cheeks, her gaze hooded and the green shot with a darkness that he’s sure his eyes match.

“No witty remark?” She throws her head back, grinning lasciviously, something he must do often because she makes a mockery of his accent, saying, “‘Oh, I always am, but it’s lovely to hear you admit it, lass.’”

He must look a little stupid as he stares at her, but her eyes drift lower and he pushes past stupid, does the smart thing and inches forward. He lifts her hips and pulls her close enough to slide his cock between her folds. She’s so sensitive that she damn near bites her lip in half, tugging it into her mouth as he presses the head of his cock against her clit. It’s tortuous, feeling her where she’s wet and hot, but still as he drags down he manages to get the last word in, “No witty remark, love?” before he draws away from her clit - she gasps, and her tongue peeks out, mouth staying parted on a low moan as he sinks in.

He’s grateful that she has nothing to say to this because he has no words either as he inches inside her. The angle is off a little but she merely shifts and he pushes in deeper, only drawing out to push back in, pumping into her slow strokes.

She cants her head to the side, eyes closing. Not wanting that, he says, “Look at me, love.”

There’s no perhaps to it; he sounds overcome as he says it, nearly breaks his teeth on the request. And there’s no perhaps to this either; he and Emma, they understand each other, and she responds with a frenzy to equal his, flipping her head back to the side, several strands sticking to her sweaty forehead.

He uses his hook to keep her steady as he starts to push deeper with each thrust, feeling her stretch around him, so tight and it’s been far longer for him, he knows, but he’s careful with it. Her waist fit in his hands when he’d allowed himself to be tricked into thinking he needed both of them to love her properly, and she _fits_ around him, snug and tight and hot, gods so hot that he has to bite his tongue around saying it, not sure if -

“Will you just fuck me already?”

Her legs wrap around him, her hips digging into his ass, dragging his pants further down than she gave him the chance to. They’re wrapped around his knees still, a dangerous position - but no more dangerous than the heat of her as he gives her what she wants, thrusting until he hits bottom.

He thinks that maybe this moment should’ve been something slow, but knows that his thoughts are all a mess, can’t think when her mouth is on his, how in all damnation is he supposed to be able to think with her quim wrapped around his cock and her arching her back, her breasts bouncing as he speeds up.

He tugs her forward, feels himself fall deeper at this angle, so deep as to draw a cry from her lips - thinks it might be pain for a moment at the size of him, knows he isn’t small, knows that - before she says, “Feels so good, oh god, so good. Fuck _me_.”

Emma rises up higher on her elbows and he tries to meet her eyes, but she draws her gaze low, to where she starts to roll her hips to meet him.

He looks down too and how he’s stayed quiet this long…

Can’t stay quiet any longer.

“You’re so wet, love, look,” he says as he pulls out of her, his cock practically glistening with her and she cries out as he pushes back in while he laughs and says, “And so bloody tight, I could make my home here, could stay here forever.”

“You could - not,” she protests, words breaking around every thrust so her sentence is barely uttered before she starts to whimper again.

He bends forward, shifts the ankle a bit more so that he can press his chest to bouncing breasts, can kiss the long column of her sweat slicked throat, so his words brush her ear when he says, “I’m going to make my home here, right here with you. You feel so good, Emma, I never want to leave.”

She makes a noise, trapped in her throat by another sound - “Please, Killian, _please._ ” He slows a bit, feels the pleasure drawing tight at the base of his spine because she’s fluttering around him and he needs to feel her lose herself, needs to feel how much tighter she can get around him.

He’s risking death, probably, but he’s going to make the gamble that it’ll be the sweetest death any man will ever know.

He can’t quite reach his hand between their bodies without messing up the angle so he does what he can, improvises. Nosing along her throat, careful to leave kisses everywhere he can, Killian drags his beard against her skin to leave a path of redness behind. He arches his own back so he can dip his head further, enough that he can press his mouth just above her breasts, licking and sucking until his tongue strokes over scarred skin. He focuses in there, kissing gently. It’s gentler than the way he fucks into her, speeding up again because she’s starting to clench around him and his name is an unsteady mantra from her mouth.

He draws back only to plead, “Tell me love, tell me how it feels.”

“So fucking good, oh, god Killian I’m going to come, need to come, please, _please_.”

She whimpers when he kisses at her again and he’s practically slamming into her now, but he can’t stop, he’s so close that he can see it sparking behind his eyelids when he closes his eyes. Her heels are digging indents into his ass that almost hurt, and his back is starting to ache - His heart is pounding a mile a minute, screaming that it’s there in his chest as if he needed the reminder when Emma’s crying out his name like he’s the one thing, the only thing she needs.

She squeezes him so tight that he finds himself correct; the little death isn’t so little when he’s crying her name hoarsely, thrusting as deep as he can and coming to her panting and writhing beneath him.

He doesn’t know where he finds the strength to not just fall against her, but perhaps it’s because he’s pressed so close to her chest that he can imagine he hears her heart beating as wild and fast as his.

-/-

Emma nearly shakes underneath him, her limbs aching with pleasure and the white just beginning to fade from behind her eyes. Killian pulls out of her slowly and she groans at the loss, murmuring something unintelligible as she buries her face in the pillow. He moves to lie beside her and she nuzzles against him as he drapes a sheet over the both of them. Emma’s head rests on his chest, his arms around her and both of them too exhausted to bother with arduous things like _moving_.

He was right. They could stay here forever, make their home here forever. Just the two of them, enclosed in their own little world without magic and curses and Dark Ones. It’ll be right here when she wakes up, but just for now she gets to think about this and this only - just Killian and how he feels and how he makes her feel.

“Not that I’m complaining, love,” he rasps, raising his head to meet her eyes. His hand comes up to brush a strand of hair away from her face, gazing at her affectionately. “But what brought you to the inn at this time of night?”

“What, not convinced by the booty call?” she laughs against him. Her nose brushes against his and his eyes are light with mirth, even as his face twists into confusion. Killian masks it quickly and she can’t bite back the grin.

“I did enjoy plundering for pleasure, if that’s what you meant by booty,” he teases, pressing a quick kiss to her shoulder as his hand falls to skim along the length of it. They’re exhausted, sated, and she definitely should be able to manage sleep now. “But I don’t believe that’s what brought you here tonight.”

Emma’s expression turns more serious, her head bending down to rest against his chest. She presses a kiss to it, her hand rubbing soothing circles in the hair. “Bad dream,” she admits carefully, closing her eyes at the feeling of his hand massaging the base of her scalp. “I...I dreamt I was stuck, watching Gold kill you. And I panicked, couldn’t go back to sleep. I tried ignoring it, tried not to bother you -”

“I was hardly bothered,” he points out, easily, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

Her lips curve into a small smile. “I just had to feel you, had to know you were okay. I missed the signs, last time.”

“You were dealing with an ice witch,” Killian observes. “Hardly your fault. Gold is particularly good at manipulating people to believe what he wishes them to. It’s how the man works.”

“Yeah,” Emma breathes. “I know. But I had to...I couldn’t let it happen again. I had to make sure for myself and you were staring at me when you opened the door and I just - I had to kiss you, had to hold you, had to know you were here with me. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if something happened to you.”

“Swan,” he protests, moving his hand to tilt her chin up to face him. “Never feel like a bother. I need to know when you’re upset, need to know how I can fix it. And if you...well, if you find me worth getting upset over-”

Killian’s exhale is a little shaky, but he holds her to him closer still.

“You’re more than worth it,” Emma replies easily, almost too easily. But he makes it simple, makes it clear as day that he’s worth all of this and more. He’s worth the worry, worth the pain, worth far more than what he values himself at. And maybe she’s starting to understand why Killian is so adamant that she sees the same things within herself. She has faith in him, completely, and she needs him to have the same amount of faith in himself.

The realization may as well be the breakdown of the last foundations of the walls she’s put in place to protect herself. He’s chipped away most of it with his support and devotion, this part she has to take down herself. And this - seeing the same insecurities and fears mirrored in him that she sees in herself - is the last bit of proof she needs.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she admits, meeting his eyes.

She can feel his heart pounding under hers.

“Nor I without you,” he chokes out, voice suddenly thick with emotion as he slowly presses his lips to hers, soft and tender. She reciprocates fully, eyes closing in contentment.

He leans back just as slowly, his forehead resting against hers.

“I’m glad you came here tonight,” Killian tells her.

Emma’s lips curl into a smile as he takes his hook off, then his brace. He folds her back into his embrace, her head resting in the crook of his shoulder and his arms curling around the span of her waist. “Me too.”

She manages to go to sleep that night, after all, the warmth tingling from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. The sound of his heartbeat, steady under her ear, is the only lullaby she needs.

 


End file.
